Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/233

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AN EXCITED CAPTAIN.
173

that I ever saw. When Capt. Molujean got excited he could not talk at all for stuttering, so one day the guards concluded to have a little sport at the expense of the Captain. We were now nearly opposite where about a month previous a battle with the Pah-Utes had been fought, and the advance guards were riding back to the train--it now being time to corrall for dinner. They met Capt. Molujean, who asked if they had seen any Indians.

One of the guards informed him that there were sixty-odd up the ravine. This set the Captain wild. He wheeled around and rode back to where I was in the wagon and started in to tell me what the guard had said, but he could not utter a word.

After listening to him a minute or so I told him if he would get some one to tell what he wanted I would answer his question. I suppose I was somewhat impatient, as I was suffering from my wound. At this one of the guards rode up with a smile on his face, and I asked him if he could tell me what Capt. Molujean was trying to say to me. He related to me what they had told him in regard to the sixty-odd Indians up the ravine, referring to the Indians that had been killed in battle between the soldiers and Pah-Utes.

We had a good laugh at the Captain's expense, after which I told him the Indians the guard had reference to were all good Indians.

"Oh! is that so?" he exclaimed, and these were the first words he had been able to utter. "But," he continued, "I did not know there were any good Indians in this country; I thought all of them were savage." I